Random Friday thoughts

Jan 13, 2012 10:36

Anecdotes, not antidotes.

Sterile, not sterol ( Read more... )

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sharpestscalpel January 13 2012, 16:16:10 UTC
It's not generally enough to distract me from the story - but it IS my professional job (I'm a an editor), and I can't seem to turn off noticing it in the first place.

I'm working my way toward figuring something out - or at least figuring out how to express it. Like, I know some people take their fic very seriously. And I know I post first drafts because this is my FUN writing instead of my polished professional writing (and also I tend to just be a first draft writer anyway). But I have no idea how to or even if I should point out those types of mistakes in fic on, for instance, AO3. Like, is it even expected? I feel like fic is presented as a finished work - there's no space for workshopping or offering critical feedback.

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yeomanrand January 13 2012, 16:20:02 UTC
I think it depends on the author; shinychimera and I wouldn't necessarily mind a workshop-level critique, generally speaking, but I know a lot of other fic authors get really uptight about it.

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sharpestscalpel January 13 2012, 16:27:08 UTC
Exactly. And once something is presented as "finished", a real critique doesn't seem appropriate somehow. I mean, I could do literary analysis all day for funsies but I suspect it would not be as fun for other people.

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yeomanrand January 13 2012, 16:15:33 UTC
My big argh anymore is "breath/breathe"

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sharpestscalpel January 13 2012, 16:17:56 UTC
That's actually a really good example of why spelling by rote isn't always effective. It's easier to remember if you know that Es on the ends of words make the vowels in the middle bit sound long. But if you don't know how the phonemes work together, it all seems so arbitrary.

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yeomanrand January 13 2012, 16:19:06 UTC
I suppose -- though there's also the fact that one's a noun and the other's a verb. ;)

Of course, verbing weirds language, so there you go.

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sharpestscalpel January 13 2012, 16:22:35 UTC
But the part of speech that it is doesn't shape the way it's spelled - that's what I mean by spelling by rote. If you can remember that one is a verb and the other is a noun and that works, that is awesome - but I think it's important to know how the fundamental parts of spoken language come together to make certain sounds when you're spelling. And, I mean, obviously phonics is limited because English comes from so many sources, but there are times when it's massively useful from a general guidelines perspective that has nothing to do with grammar.

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imachar January 13 2012, 16:21:15 UTC
My (not) favorite is dominant - dominate...I don't tend to see it so much in fic as in student writing - but it drives me *nuts*. I noticed this year it's now extended to predominate - predominant. along with borders/boarders and capital/capitol

I don't tend to point it out when someone else does it - but conversely, I'm always pathetically grateful when someone points out one of my slip-ups, because hey! then I can fix it and not look like an idiot any longer...

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circ_bamboo January 13 2012, 18:26:53 UTC
Oh god. I've had one of those weeks where every. single. typo in everything annoys me, from professional works to fic. Sometimes I'm pretty sure I'd like the stories if I weren't having a picky-picky week.

I've never seen sterol for sterile before but I did know what a sterol was. :)

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lt_moreau January 13 2012, 19:16:49 UTC
You can affect an effect but you can also effect an affect. :-\

My personal pet peeve is when people say "drug" instead of "dragged." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/drug?r=75 Nowhere in any of those definitions does it say anything about the past tense of "to drag." That one bothers me worse than "brung" as the preterite of "bring," because it seems to have been created by the same logic, but where "brung" is not even a word, "drug" is a word that has its own meanings and has nothing to do with the meaning people are trying to give it.

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